What's Going On With You?

[Michael Brunelle]

Summer is here, and it is always a time of transition. School ends, jobs begin, trips are taken, projects started, or ended, or suspended ...

 

Please drop in and tell us what you have been doing or what plans you are making.

[Michael Brunelle]

Right now it is about 97º in Charlottesville and we are hunkered down in our air conditioned bunker. The weekend will be cooler but it may also bring some thunderstorms. 

Classes ended at Sweet Briar College, and Bea and I no longer commute the 60 miles three to four times per week, at least until the end of August when it starts all over again. I reckon that we make about 100 round trips each school year. I didn't used to reckon anything, but after 20 years in Virginia it's rubbed off on me. I have not begun saying "y'all", except in jest, and not even "you all", which is the gateway drug. 

You may know that we translate books from Spanish into English for a publishing company in Long Island. We have done one per month starting last November, and we are working on two more that are due by early August. Jone had to pitch in on a couple last winter, and now she can find the books in the local Barnes & Noble, and proudly point out her name on the copyright page. 

I have been riding with Michael this year as he accumulates the miles required for his shiny new driver's license. Yesterday we were downtown and he stopped behind a driver who was trying to parallel park on the street. The car behind bumped into us, so lightly I wasn't sure it had happened. I jumped out to check for damage, and the other driver jumped out of her car and hugged me. "Oh Mr. Brunelle, I'm so glad its you!" said Jone's good friend Bonnie. What are the odds of that? Michael was glad that his first fender bender was didn't bend a fender, and Bonnie was glad that I wasn't a mean old man. 

We plan to visit relatives in Oñati this summer and clean up the apartment, which has been empty for a year or two. I will again drag everyone out for a few days to see old churches and castles and piles of stones. 

[Andy Brunelle]